Rating： 5
I purchased a ZTE nubia Z50 Ultra.
The ultimate in smartphone displays
The ZTE nubia Z50 Ultra is a smartphone powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
With an under-screen front camera, there are no punch holes or notches, and the bezels are thin and flat, so you can enjoy video and other content without being blocked by anything.
Despite being inexpensive, it has the performance to play Genshin at almost 60 FPS, and even has a periscope camera that can take beautiful pictures of distant objects.
This review is done on the 12GB+512GB version, MyOS13.0.13MR_NX712J_VG.
- Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for high performance and power savings
- Narrow bezel full-screen smartphone with under-screen camera
- Onboard 64MP periscope telephoto camera
- 5,000mAh battery with 80W charging support
- Separate charging to reduce battery load
- USB 3.2 Gen 1 port for video output as well
- Heavy
- Angular
- Almost impossible to change theme
| ZTE nubia Z50 Ultra NX712J | |
|---|---|
| OS | Android 13 |
| RAM | 8GB / 12GB / 16GB LPDDR5X |
| Storage | 256GB / 512GB / 1TB UFS 4.0 |
| SoC | Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 |
| Display | 6.8inch FHD+ 2480×1116 Aspect ratio 20:9 120Hz AMOLED |
| Size | 169.9 x 76.3 x 8.3mm |
| Weight | 228g |
| SIM | nano SIM + nano SIM |
| Rear Camera | 64MP (Sony IMX787) + 64MP (Telephoto OmniVision OV64B) + 50MP (Ultra-wide Samsung S5KJN1) |
| Front Camera | 16MP (OV16E1Q) |
| Battery | 5,000mAh |
| USB Port | USB Type-C (USB 3.2 Gen1) |
| Bands | NR:n1/n3/n5/n8/n28 (703MHz-733MHz/758MHz-788MHz)/n41 (2496-2690MHz)/n78 (3.3-3.6GHz) FDD:B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B12/B17/B18/B19/B20/B26/B28 TDD:B34/B38/39/40/41(B41: 2515MHz-2675MHz) UMTS:B1/B2/B4/B5/B8 CDMA:BC0 GSM:B2/B3/B5/B8 |
Index
- 1 The ultimate in smartphone displays
- 2 Unobstructed video contents
- 3 Equipped with an in-screen fingerprint sensor
- 4 Artistic back
- 5 64MP periscope telephoto camera
- 6 VoLTE and many 4G/5G bands
- 7 DP Alt Mode supported USB 3.2 Gen 1 port
- 8 Built-in stereo speakers
- 9 Switch for camera and sound mode
- 10 Genshin 59.1 FPS playable high performance
- 11 Conclusion
I purchased the Starry Night Edition, which is based on Van Gogh’s famous painting, The Starry Night.
The outer box is designed for naked-eye 3D display and appears to have depth.
The inner box is also designed to resemble a starry sky.
Accessories include a protective case, a set of two USB Type-C cables and chargers, and an instruction manual.
The protective film is attached from the beginning.
The protective case is honestly not very useful as the sides are not protected at all.
I don’t need two chargers, and it would have been nice if they had added something more useful or a starry night design…
The black charger has 1 x USB Type-C port and can only charge up to 45W in 100V regions unfortunately.
The white one has 2 USB Type-C ports and 1 USB Type-A port and can charge up to 65W.
Unobstructed video contents
The nubia Z50 Ultra’s display is an AMOLED with 6.8″ FHD+ (2480 x 1116) resolution.
It is a flat display with no edges and no punch holes thanks to the under-screen in-camera.
Rounded corners are kept to a minimum, so the edges of videos and games are not weirdly hidden.
The in-camera is so naturally hidden that it can only be seen if reflected by light.
A gray background color makes it a little easier to see.
The in-camera image quality is poor, with a white blur, but the camera can pass through face recognition and eKYC identity verification selfies, at least.
It is a diamond pixel array, and the in-camera portion has a circular dot.
There are three refresh rates: auto, 60 Hz, and 120 Hz.
It can also be fixed in developers option.
It also has a function to prevent miss-touching at the edge of the screen or when in pocket.
When measuring brightness with the LX-1336B during HDR video playback with automatic brightness adjustment on, we reached a maximum of 744 nits.
Although this is a little lower than the latest models from other companies, it is still easy enough to see outdoors.
The total touch latency measured by the WALT Latency Timer was 44.6 ms.
Widevine L1 allows streaming in HD quality on Amazon Prime Video (beta) and others.
Equipped with an in-screen fingerprint sensor
The nubia Z50 Ultra has an in-screen fingerprint sensor, positioned closer to the center of the screen.
Artistic back
The back of the Star Collection edition (星空典藏版) is designed in the style of Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”.
With a completely bezel-less front with no punch holes and an oil painting on the back, you can enjoy both modern and classic art in one device.
It is heavy, weighing 232.9g.
64MP periscope telephoto camera
The nubia Z50 Ultra uses a 64MP SONY IMX787 as its main camera, and also has a 64MP periscope telephoto camera and a 50MP ultra-wide-angle camera.
The main camera and the periscope telephoto camera support OIS optical image stabilization.
All photos were taken handheld and in auto mode and are stored here; photos for comparison with the vivo X90 Pro+ are stored here.
Magnification is indicated as 85mm, 170mm, etc., with a small 1.4x, 5x, etc. below.
The macro mode is on by default, and the color tones will be quite different from when it is off, perhaps because of the use of the super wide-angle camera.
It is better to turn it on or off depending on the application, since it looks better with it on and is easier to focus on.
The HDR is quite strong, and at 1x, there were some areas with less white splash than the vivo X90 Pro+.
However, when zoomed in 2x, the vivo X90 Pro+ is still often able to take photos with better detail, and in the example below, the window frame of the building is blacked out.
Zooming is possible up to 30x.
The 30x zoom in daylight has noise.
The vivo X90 Pro+ seems to automatically add a lot of image processing, and there are some unnatural marks on the text and other parts of the image.
VoLTE and many 4G/5G bands
The following bands are supported by the nubia Z50 Ultra.
- NR:n1/n3/n5/n8/n28/n41/n78
- FDD:B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B12/B17/B18/B19/B20/B26/B28
- TDD:B34/B38/39/40/41
- UMTS:B1/B2/B4/B5/B8
- CDMA:BC0
- GSM:B2/B3/B5/B8
VoLTE on non-Chinese carriers is also supported.
Automatic recording of calls is also possible.
Wi-Fi 7 support.
With my Wi-Fi 6 router, which supports only 1 Gbps, nubia Z50 Ultra had a link speed of 2401 Mbps, with a downlink speed of 929 Mbps and uplink speed of 813 Mbps, almost at the upper limit of my current environment.
DP Alt Mode supported USB 3.2 Gen 1 port
The USB Type-C port on the nubia Z50 Ultra is USB 3.2 Gen 1 compatible and can output video in DisplayPort Alt Mode.
When outputting video, audio is output from the monitor side.
Mirroring the screen allows you to play smartphone games on a large screen.
In game mode, there is a mode called “charge separation” that allows power to be supplied without charging the battery.
This allows for extended gameplay without putting too much strain on the battery.
Built-in stereo speakers
The upper speaker is used both for music and calls, and the upper speaker is not symmetrical, as it only has a hole in it to allow sound to leak out easily.
The lower speaker sounds louder.
Bass is stronger and treble is muffled, making it difficult to hear in some situations.
The audio output delay was 35.6 ms when measured with the WALT Latency Timer.
You can have surround sound playback with DTS:X Ultra.
Switch for camera and sound mode
On the right side are the power and volume buttons.
The contrast of the red power button against the blue body is cool.
There is a switch on the top to activate the camera and game space in street mode and to switch sound modes.
If I had gone to the trouble, I would have liked the button to be used not only for activation, but also as a shutter key.
There is nothing on the left side.
Genshin 59.1 FPS playable high performance
The nubia Z50 Ultra is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which offers both fairly high performance and power efficiency.
In Geekbench 6, the package name disguised version (i.e., not affected by the manufacturer’s illegal boost) scored 934 single-core and 3118 multi-core, while the normal version scored 1998 single-core and 5304 multi-core.
The benchmark scores are made to look good, but in actual applications, the performance is greatly reduced to prevent heat generation….
With such a large difference from the real environment, the comparison of benchmark results with the Play Store distributed version no longer makes any sense.
AI performance measured in Geekbench ML with TensorFlow Lite/NNAPI was score 368.
Wild Life Extreme Stress Test in 3DMark with disguised package name showed a score of 3739 to 2985, with a temperature increase from 24°C to 43°C (19°C increase) and battery consumption of 12%.
Thermal throttling seems to be weak.
PCMark Work 3.0 (package name disguised version), which measures performance in everyday use such as document manipulation, scored 11999.
This shows that the performance is reduced to Snapdragon 870 level except for games.
I did not measure it because it is a waste of time, but the Play Store distributed version would probably give an unusually high score thanks to ZTE’s benchmark cheating.
The memory is LPDDR5X and the storage is UFS 4.0.
When measured with WeTest PerfDog by playing Genshin at the highest quality, 60FPS setting, and Sumeru with the game mode set to Beyond Mode (Performance Mode), the average power consumption was 127.8mW per FPS at 59.1FPS.
Battery temperature rose to 41°C.
Compared to other companies’ Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-based models, it consumes a little more power and generates more heat, so if you want to keep the heat down, it would be better to play in balanced mode.
Conclusion
- Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for high performance and power savings
- Narrow bezel full-screen smartphone with under-screen camera
- Onboard 64MP periscope telephoto camera
- 5,000mAh battery with 80W charging support
- Separate charging to reduce battery load
- USB 3.2 Gen 1 port for video output as well
- Heavy
- Angular
- Almost impossible to change theme
The nubia Z50 Ultra is recommended for those who want a full-screen phone to enjoy content without any punch holes or rounded corners.
Although it loses out to the best cameras from other companies, the camera performance is good enough thanks to the periscope telephoto camera, and Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 performs well in games and reduces the load on the battery with the charge separation.
The only disadvantages are that it is heavy and does not support languages other than English and Chinese (you can change languages by adb command).